Types of DDoS Attacks

Distributed Denial of Service is DDoS. DDoS attacks today pose a significant threat to online businesses. These attacks disrupt the traffic of websites & networks by overloading them with malicious traffic, causing them to be inaccessible to real users. Let’s understand the various types of DDoS attacks as it’s crucial for developing effective strategies to mitigate their impact. Here, we explore the most common types of DDoS attacks and how they work.

Types of DDoS Attacks

Volumetric Attacks

Volumetric attacks are among the most common and potent forms of DDoS attacks. They aim to overwhelm a target’s network bandwidth by flooding it with a high traffic volume. This flood of data packets consumes all available bandwidth, leaving legitimate users unable to access the targeted service. Volumetric attacks often leverage botnets – networks of compromised computers or devices controlled by the attacker – to generate massive traffic.

How Does Volumetric DDoS Attacks Work?

Attackers use amplification techniques such as DNS reflection or UDP amplification to increase the data volume sent to the target. In a DNS reflection attack, for example, the attacker spoofs the victim’s IP address and sends DNS queries to open DNS resolvers, which respond with large amounts of data to the victim’s IP, overloading their network.

Protocol Attacks

Protocol attacks exploit vulnerabilities in network protocols to consume server resources, making the service inaccessible to legitimate users. Unlike volumetric attacks, which flood the network with traffic, protocol attacks focus on exhausting server resources such as CPU or RAM by exploiting flaws in protocol handling mechanisms.

How Does Protocol DDoS Attacks Work?

Custom packets are sent by the attackers to exploit weaknesses in protocols such as TCP, UDP, or ICMP. For instance, a SYN flood attack floods the victim’s server with TCP/SYN packets – exhausting server resources as it waits for acknowledgement responses that never arrive.

Application Layer Attacks (Layer 7 Attacks)

Application layer attacks can also be referred to as Layer 7 attacks. These attacks target the layer where web pages are generated and served to users. These attacks are more sophisticated than volumetric or protocol attacks because they mimic genuine user behavior – making it harder to detect & mitigate. Application layer attacks often aim to exhaust server resources, overwhelm specific functions, or exploit vulnerabilities in web applications.

How Does Layer 7 DDoS Attacks Work?

Attackers send genuine-looking requests to the target server, such as HTTP GET or POST requests – but with malicious intent. Examples include HTTP flood attacks, where attackers send a heap of HTTP requests to exhaust server resources or slow down response times – making the service unavailable to legitimate users.

Slowloris Attacks

Slowloris is a kind of application layer attack specifically designed to exploit vulnerabilities in web server software. Unlike traditional DDoS attacks that flood a server with traffic, Slowloris works by establishing multiple connections to the target server and keeping them open for as long as possible. By sending partial HTTP requests and periodically sending more header information, Slowloris keeps the connections open and consumes server resources – eventually leading to a denial of service for real users.

How Does Slowloris DDoS Attacks Work?

The attackers initiate multiple connections to the target server and send HTTP headers at frequent intervals – but never complete the requests. This ties up server resources, such as threads and memory – preventing the server from serving authentic requests.

DNS Flood Attacks

DNS flood attacks exploit vulnerabilities in the domain name system (DNS) infrastructure to overload DNS servers, rendering online services inaccessible to users. These attacks target DNS servers by flooding them with an unwanted crowd of recursive queries or exploiting weaknesses in DNS resolution processes.

How Does DNS Flood DDoS Attacks Work?

Attackers flood DNS servers with a high volume of recursive queries or exploit vulnerabilities in DNS resolution processes. This overwhelms DNS servers, causing delays in DNS resolution or complete denial of service – making it difficult for users to access websites.

Ping of Death

The Internet Control Message Protocol is ICMP. Ping of Death is an example of protocol-based DDoS attacks that exploit vulnerabilities in the ICMP. This attack involves sending oversized or malformed ICMP packets to the target system, causing it to crash or become unstable.

How Do Ping of Death DDoS Attacks Work?

Attackers craft ICMP packets that exceed the maximum packet size allowed by the IP protocol. When the target system receives these oversized packets, it may crash, reboot, or become unresponsive – disrupting normal operations and denying service to legitimate users.

IoT-Based Attacks

With the proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, attackers increasingly exploit these devices to launch DDoS attacks. IoT-based attacks involve compromising vulnerable IoT devices, such as webcams or routers, and using them to generate large volumes of malicious traffic directed at a target.

How Do IoT-Based DDoS Attacks Work?

Attackers infect IoT devices with malware that allows them to control the infected devices remotely. By coordinating thousands or even millions of compromised IoT devices (forming a botnet), attackers can launch powerful DDoS attacks that overwhelm the target’s network infrastructure, causing disruption or service outage.

Mitigating DDoS Attacks

Detecting & mitigating DDoS attacks requires a multi-layered approach that includes network monitoring, traffic filtering, rate limiting, and using specialized DDoS mitigation services or appliances. Businesses must also use robust cybersecurity practices, such as keeping software & firmware updated, configuring firewalls & routers to block malicious traffic, and educating users about phishing & malware prevention.

Conclusion

DDoS attacks continue to evolve in sophistication & impact, posing significant challenges to agencies. The different types of DDoS attacks can be handled by businesses with the correct techniques. Also, top server agencies like Leasepacket can be reached to strengthen your online presence and tackle security challenges.

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